


On the Way Home

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 19:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19910677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Nyx tends to babble when he's nervous. And only the thought of Noct meeting his mother makes him nervous these days.





	On the Way Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glaivenoct](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glaivenoct/gifts).



Nyx babbled when he was nervous. It was a habit that had carried him through childhood antics in Galahd. It was one that he had never bothered to really break in the face of adulthood, or Nif Occupation, or his own parent’s exasperation— he just got bolder and less nervous about breaking the rules. 

But this was different. 

This was not some broken curfew or skinned knee. It wasn’t even boxes of stashed weapons stolen from Imperial bases and hidden in the basement of his bar. This was much, much worse. Nyx had faced down daemons with a grin, and soldiers with a quip. He had stood at attention before the King of Lucis, and listened in on meetings he was assigned to guard. In the past year, he had brushed elbows with the highest members of Eos’ nobility during treaties and signings, and spoke— though briefly— on what he recalled of the Nif impact on his homeland when pressed by the Lucian King. 

And he would happily go back to those rooms full of disdainful foreign rulers deciding the fate of everyone else in the world if it meant he could avoid this meeting. 

“She’ll love you, I know. Just… don’t try to help in the kitchen, that’s really her domain, little star.”

Galahd had opened up to them like a dream— the waves crashing against the shore had been like a siren song drawing him home, the leafy forests already encroaching on the edges of the city where they had landed was a reminder of how wild the islands were. The city itself was a Nif construct, built higher and higher and people flocked to it for safety and work, as the small towns shuttered themselves beneath the brutality of the Imperial forces. 

“And just accept whatever she offers, it’s easier. It’ll be lemonade right now, probably. She did ask about what you liked, and I told her not to worry. So it’s probably lemonade, or tea. Be prepared for both.”

“Nyx.”

“Right, sorry, sorry. Go for the tea, though.”

His hometown was more ragged than he remembered. Craters had already started to seed new grass and plants, shrapnel that still burned in his memory had been removed where possible and rearranged into memorials as the vivid new grass threatened the memory of war. Buildings and walls still bore the scorch marks and bullet holes of the invasion, the skirmishes and battles embedded in the ruins that Nyx knew the locals would have refused to clear away. 

Leave the nightmares to the forest. 

There were two towns in Nyx’s mind as they travelled in the little rented truck; the ruins around them, rebuilt from the ground up in the image of Nif sensibilities— cold and sterile out of place in the island. And then there was the memory of the town Nyx had left with Libertus and Crowe— the old farms and ranches, the Ostium ranch, the burnt out shell of their bar off the main street— still stood as it always had. Sturdy and earthy bright, gathered and built from the islands rather than imported Imperial materials. 

He supposed that’s why it had burned so easily in the end. 

“There’s not really any customs you need to keep in mind,” Nyx babbled as they continued, as they came closer and closer to the little house on the edge of the forest, pressed up against the Ostium ranch Nyx had spent most of his summers exploring. “Not like the Lucian Council stuff. Ma just likes help in the garden, and might recruit you to help there. And there’s—”

Noctis kissed him the moment they stopped in the overgrown little driveway. The stream of words died on Nyx’s lips. “Nyx, it’ll be fine.”

“I know, I know. It’s just…”

“Do I have to kiss you again to keep you from babbling?”

“Probably.”

Noctis rolled his eyes and opened the door. He hopped down from the truck first and with a smile. “It’s fine, hero. Introduce me to your mother.”


End file.
